Over the years all
sorts of weird and wonderful things have ended up inside cans, knickers and
fresh air spring immediately to mind, so why not a camera? Needless to say it
has been done to death. This one is a promotional gimmick and you can
substitute paint-maker Brolac for dozens of other brand names. Some of them
were and still are really famous, like Coca Cola, Duracell and Pepsi, to name
just a few, but there were plenty of others that you won’t have heard of.
Clearly having your logo plastered all over a plastic ‘tin can’ camera wasn’t a
guarantee of success.

Inside this one, which
dates from the early 1980s, there’s a barebones 110 cartridge camera and in
common with almost all cheap cameras of this type it really does take pictures.
However, the plastic lens and lack of any sort of exposure controls meant that
they would mostly be pretty awful, but to be fair that’s really not the point
of give-aways and freebies. To take a photo with your Camera In A Can all you
had to do was slide a little lever on the back to open the loading door, pop in
a film cartridge, shut the door, advance the film to the first frame using the
thumbwheel on the front, and, using the simple optical viewfinder and shutter
button on the top, point and shoot. Once the film had been used up you took out
the cartridge and had it processed. This would take anywhere from a few hours
to a few days, and usually cost somewhere between £2.00 and £5.00.

Once you got the prints
back you could expect to be fairly disappointed with the results and the camera
would either go straight into the bin or end up in the back of a drawer,
gathering dust. One way or another the result was usually the same and those
that didn’t get binned straight away would find their way into landfill,
usually following a clearout. That’s what make these otherwise undistinguished
little cameras potentially interesting to collectors. They have two things
going for them; some sort of personal interest or attachment to the brand name
printed on the outside and the simple fact that out of the tens, if not
hundreds of thousands that were made, only a relatively small number have
survived.

Surprisingly the
housing on this model is quite well made, though the camera mechanism inside is
almost entirely made of plastic, and probably wouldn’t last for more than a few
outings. I found it at a car boot sale some time ago and because of its unusual
size and shape, and seeing the thumbwheel, I thought for a moment that it was
novelty radio. The weird thing was the young stallholder reckoned it was some
sort of cigarette lighter; he even claimed that it worked; it just needed a new
battery. I politely explained that it was actually a camera and it used 110
film cartridges, which needed processing at the chemist. His eyes glazed over
at that point and his clear lack of interest in this sort of archaic image
recording technology may even have contributed to a near instant price drop,
from a pound to 50 pee. I left with what I considered to be a bargain, and an
uncomfortable feeling of being really old…

After a quick clean up
it turned out to be in near mint condition and the fact that it is still with
us, and in good working order suggests that it hadn’t seen active service or
more than a small handful of cartridges in the last 30 plus years.

What Happened To It?

Putting a camera inside
a tin can is a surprisingly old idea. One of the earliest examples I have been
able to find is the US made Teddy Camera from 1924, which was housed in a small
tin box. It may even have inspired Edwin Land, the guy who invented the
Polaroid ‘Instant’ camera, as it came with its own developing tank. This fitted
on to the back of the camera and processed a print while you waited

This particular Camera
In A Can is a more recent development (no pun intended) and was made by a
Taiwanese company called Eiko. It dates from 1980, give or take a year or two,
as sources on the web list this model as being in production from 1977 to 1983.
The background to the now obsolete film it uses is that from the early 1960s
onwards Kodak got into the habit of launching a new cartridge format every 10
years or so. It was an ingenious and hugely profitable marketing ploy, but one
that mostly benefited the film making and processing industries, rather than
the camera-buying public. Anyway, the 110 format first appeared in 1972 but it
took a few years before manufacturers in the Far East drove down the costs,
making cameras cheap enough to give away. This was towards the end of the 110
format’s life as in 1982 Kodak were at it again with the Disc Film format, but
that’s another
story.

Novelty cameras in cans
continued to be produced throughout the photographic film era. A Hong Kong
manufacturer, called Ginfax were particularly prolific in the 80s and 90s with
a more up market promotional model. This used 35mm film and had a built-in
electronic flash. More recently the story has taken on a bizarre twist. If you
google ‘camera in a can’ you will find scores of websites showing you how to
fabricate simple (and some not so simple) film and digital cameras out of soft
drinks cans.

Although the Eiko model
isn’t common prices tend to be quite modest and you should be able to find one
or two selling on ebay for less than £10.00. You might think that examples with
obscure or long departed company names would be worth more, as they will be
that much rarer, but this seems to have little or no bearing on value. The fact
that it is now difficult and expensive to obtain, let alone process 110 format
film doesn’t help either. However I see that as an opportunity for collectors
on a budget and by rights a complete set of Eiko cameras could be worth
a tidy sum one day, but please don’t quote me on that….

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